Below the Surface, 2012

Ravi Agarwal
Below the Surface, 2012
One colour photograph and one black-and-white photograph
136 x 109 cm
Courtesy of the artist

Biography

Ravi Agarwal’s interdisciplinary practice as an artist, photographer, environmental campaigner, writer and curator explores key contemporary issues of ecology, society, urban space and capital. Photography has been a pricipal medium for him for more than four decades, which has expanded over time to include video, public art, installations and printmaking. He is the founder and director of the Indian environmental NGO Toxics Link.

Agarwal’s work has been featured in numerous exhibitions in India and internationally, including Newtopia: The State of Human Rights, various venues, Mechelen, Belgium (2012); Generation Tradition: New Art from India, CAC Vilnius, Lithuania and Zacheta National Gallery for Art, Warsaw (2011); Where Three Dreams Cross, Whitechapel Gallery, London and Winterthur Fotomuseum, Switzerland (2010); Horn Please: Narratives in Contemporary Indian Art, Kunstmuseum Bern, Switzerland (2009); Indian Highway, Serpentine Gallery, London and other venues (2008–2011); and Crossing Generations: diVERGE, National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai (2003).

He has also participated in Sharjah Biennial (2013) and other biennials, including Havana (2019); Yinchuan (2018); and Kochi (2016) as well as in exhibitions such as Documenta 11 (2002) and Indian Highway (2009). He co-curated the Indo-European public art projects Yamuna-Elbe (2011) and Embrace our Rivers (2018) and was photography curator for the 2018 and 2019 Serendipity Arts Festival. He also organised New Natures: A terrible beauty is born at Goethe Institute Mumbai (2018).

SAF participation:
Sharjah Biennial 11

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The forest of the Delhi Ridge marks the end of the Aravalli Range, the billion-and-a-half-year-old mountain chain that extends along the western coast of India.